


Till Death

by Weevilo707



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Falling In Love, M/M, Slow Burn, Soulmates, The Astral Plane, every time he dies, taako goes to the astral plane
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 20:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: In a century of traveling from world to world, Taako dies eight times.Each time he finds himself in an Astral Plane. Or more specifically, intheAstral Plane, always the same one, always the same office. He didn't know why either, none of the others had anything like this happen. Barry said it probably had something to do with bonds, but well, that dude blamed everything on bonds.No matter what the reason though, the end result was that Taako dies and he ends up here. With Kravitz.He might not enjoy dying, but if he was already here he might as well make the most of his time.
Relationships: Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 125





	Till Death

It happened fast. Taako supposed that was a blessing, if nothing else.

He and Lup had been together, another relief. Maybe that was shitty of him, and he knew that someday that probably wouldn’t be the case. He couldn’t imagine that yet though, of going down and knowing that he was leaving Lup alone for however much time was left in the year. Or worse, of watching her go down and somehow having to function by himself until she revived.

So yeah, as far as first deaths went, it was a good one. Fast enough that the suffering had been minimal, side by side with his heart, and at the end of the year. They only had about two weeks left in the cycle from their last check. That nearby kingdom had noticed them starting to prepare to leave, and had apparently decided for one last push. One final charge to try and steal back the light of creation they had managed to grab a few months earlier.

But him and Lup had managed to hold them off. Davenport got the ship and the rest of their crew away, and if they needed to drift for the last two weeks to keep from suffering another raid they could.

Even as he collapsed, something catching his leg and sending him to his knees, he kept a hold of Lup’s hand. She sent a powerful swirl of fire around them, and from his position on the ground he transmuted the area around them into a sticky tar as far as he could manage. It wouldn’t hold them off forever, but it would slow them down enough. That was all they needed to do, slow them down enough for the others to get out. He didn’t see what managed to reach through the fire shield to hit Lup, sending her down right next to him. Probably best that way.

“Catch em next cycle?” he asked, panting as he looked up at the ship hovering anxiously out of range. He could see Lup nod, not bothering to brush aside the hair that had fallen into her face.

“Next cycle,” she agreed.

It was over fast after that, but no one could say they didn’t go down swinging.

Magnus had died twice before. That first year, when they still didn’t know about all the rules, and once more since then. He had described to them all what it had been like, and Magnus was not Lucretia, he was no word-smith, but from the sound of it once you went down there really wasn’t a lot to it. Just darkness, and then light again as the ship rebuilt you back to the places they were at the start of every cycle. That was what Taako expected, for his next conscious thoughts to take place on the deck of the Starblaster.

That wasn’t what happened.

The first thing he registered was the feeling of falling. As soon as he processed that he started to yell, but it was cut off pretty short as he hit the ground. Not a long fall and the pain he expected from the impact wasn’t as strong as he anticipated it should be either.

The next thing he registered, was the sound of something, probably more accurately  _ someone _ from the surprised shout, making a loud crash to the side.

Groaning in confusion, Taako pushed himself up, taking in his new surroundings. It definitely wasn’t the Starblaster, that was for sure. From the looks of it he was sitting in the middle of an office, no windows to speak of but a large dark oak door on one wall, another caddy corner to it. There were a few trinkets and what Taako could only guess were art pieces hung up on the walls. Other than that there were only two pieces of furniture in the room. A large desk covered in what had to of been some rather impressive stacks of paper, which were now scattered about, and a large dark chair. Said chair was currently on its side, and Taako could see the person who had been sitting in it pulling himself up.

“What- how-  _ who _ are you?!” he snapped, and the guy looked about as discombobulated as Taako felt. He also looked pretty damn fine, but that was kind of the least of Taako’s worries right now.

“I could ask you the same thing, my dude,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. He paused when he caught sight of his hand, or more accurately, when he caught sight of the floor  _ through _ his hand. “Huh,” he said, holding up his whole arm and yep, that was some transparencies right there.

The man, half-elf from the looks of it, had come around his desk now, quickly looking Taako over. He still looked flustered, but he was at least making some attempt at covering that up now. He took a deep breath, still eying him with suspicion but apparently trying to reign in some of that angry confusion.

“I am not sure if you understand. You should not be here. Please just, tell me what happened and we can get this all sorted out,” he said, and there was no reason to trust this guy. Taako also kind of needed information though, because this wasn’t what Magnus described so something might have gone wrong.

“Look bud, the last thing I remember is  _ dying.  _ I have no clue how I got here or who you are, so maybe cut cha’ boy some slack,” he said, and that seemed to at least give this guy some pause. His expression shifted from an indignant frown to one of a bit more pity as he took in Taako’s transparent form.

“Well, you are certainly dead, I do apologize for that,” he said, and yeah this guy definitely wasn’t the most sympathetic to his plight. “It’s just- I do not understand why you would appear in  _ my office. _ I’m afraid it caught me off guard, let’s try this again. My name is Kravitz, I am a bounty hunter for the Raven Queen. It seems something misfired with your death, if you give me a moment I’m sure we can figure out what went wrong and get you to your proper rest,” he said.

Proper rest wasn’t sounding all that appealing to Taako, but he figured he could play along for now.

“Sure, I got a bit of an idea about what might’ve caused the issue, but let’s get all the technicalities out of the way first. I’m Taako,” he said, and there was a moment when he started to turn, operating on instinct to introduce Lup as well. Which, right. Shit.

“Wait. It’s- my sister should be here too. We went down together,” he said, looking around like she was just hiding or something, even glancing up as if she would suddenly come falling from the ceiling too. Kravitz was frowning again, but other than that it was hard to tell what he was thinking.

“Perhaps she made it out, or her soul was able to properly join the rest in the astral sea,” he said, and Taako frowned deeply, shaking his head at that.

“There was no way out, and the thing that fucked me up should have been the same for her,” he said. He was figuring it was something with this planar system’s astral plane, maybe it was different from the ones Magnus died in. It was possible that it shunted her soul off into another corner of it though he supposed. Kravitz was looking mightily confused, going back around to the other side of his desk and righting his chair.

“Why don’t you explain to me how you and your sister died. Hopefully we can settle this here, but if not we can go straight to the Raven Queen and see what she says. Taako, was it?” he asked, sitting down and summoning a large, glowing golden book that he started to leaf through.

“Yep, Taako and Lup, if you see her in there,” he said. There wasn’t any other chairs in the room, and the dude’s desk was already a mess. Taako wasn’t a fan of how little he knew what was going on right now, and could really use a chance to assert some dominance in this situation. So without asking or saying anything, he pushed a stack of papers out of the way and hopped up to sit on the corner of the desk, peaking over the top of the book.

When Kravitz glared up at him, Taako just grinned widely.

The other man rolled his eyes, going back to looking through the book. The annoyance on his face slowly started to shift to confusion, and he started flipping faster and faster. He would glance back up at Taako every so often, like he was trying to figure out a puzzle.

“This doesn’t- you’re not here,” he said, and Taako cocked his head to the side at that.

“Whatcha mean?” he asked casually, but he already had a bit of an idea on what might be the problem.

“You’re not in here at all. It’s not that you’re lying about your name, if it was that easy everyone would do it. It’s- your soul. According to this it just… doesn’t exist in the world,” Kravitz said, sounding increasingly perplexed. Taako nodded slowly though, not really freaking out.

“Ah, yeah that’s probably because I’m not from this world,” he said, and it was hilarious how the dude just fucking froze. It was like his brain had to stop and reboot, before slowly looking back up at him.

“Excuse me?” he asked, and Taako nodded casually.

“I’m not from this world. My crew and I, we bounce around from world to world, this is our seventh one actually. My sister and I beefed it keeping the rest of our crew safe, but we only got two more weeks in this world. Once that happens my soul’ll be yanked back with the ship and we’ll be onto the next one, which is probably why it got botched crossing over,” he explained, like this was all normal. He couldn’t rightfully blame the dude for looking at him like he was insane. There was a long moment where he didn’t say anything, just staring in silence.

“What.”

It wasn’t a question, but Taako decided to treat it like one.

“I’m an alien,” he supplied helpfully, but Kravitz was shaking his head.

“No, no, just, I’m sorry, this isn’t- this actually  _ isn’t _ my job. I can’t deal with this,” he said, pushing himself up and grabbing Taako by the wrist. He was kind of surprised that the guys hand didn’t just go right through his transparent form, but he guessed he was supposed to work with the dead. Before he could ask what they were doing the guy had summoned a huge fuck off scythe, cutting a large rip into space in front of them.

“Wait, where are-” he started to ask, but Kravitz didn’t let him finish, yanking him through the portal.

“My Queen, I am sorry to disturb you,” the other man said as they walked into another room. It was huge, long black and sapphire columns and a black iridescent floor. There was a throne at the other end, and Taako had never met a god before, but he was pretty sure this was one of those things where you knew it when you saw it. Cause that was definitely a god right there. 

“What seems to be the problem, my loyal reaper?” the goddess, clearly the Raven Queen from the amount of black feathers, asked. There were a lot of eyes, and Taako suddenly felt them all on him. “And who is this?”

“Those are actually directly related, my Queen,” Kravitz started, glancing over at him again. “This soul suddenly appeared in my office after his death, instead of joining the sea of souls where he should have. He’s also not appearing on any of our records,” he explained, and Taako could see the intrigue in the goddess at that. She leaned forward in his throne, head cocking to the side in a way that very much looked like a curious bird.

“Is that so?” she asked, and Taako could feel her examining his soul. It wasn’t really a physical sensation, but it was still  _ there. _ Definitely unnerving. Clearing his throat, he stepped forward.

“I was trying to explain to your reaper here, I’m not from this world,” he said, getting a curious look from the goddess at that. “I’m uh, a part of a crew. We came to this world about a year ago. We’ll be leaving soon, and my soul will zip right on out of here and we’ll be out of your hair, so this really isn’t a big deal,” he added. The goddess was quiet for a moment, and it was pretty much impossible to tell what she was thinking.

“No, I do not believe you are from this world,” she said, and he definitely couldn’t blame her for sounding confused. “I… am not certain you were  _ ever _ in this world,” she continued.

“We’ve been to a couple, like I said, we travel. The one I just died in was called Gezorix,” he explained, and it was real hard to tell the expression of a god. Still, he was pretty sure it wasn’t  _ recognition _ .

“Abeir-Toril. This world is called  _ Abeir-Toril,” _ Kravitz said, and Taako frowned as he turned back around to look back at the reaper.

“That’s… not a world I’ve been to,” he said, and at least as far as he could tell. Sure, there were two worlds they’d been to that had no inhabitants, so they couldn’t exactly learn the proper names, but he was pretty sure that would be a bigger source of confusion for them if that was the case here.

“How strange…” the goddess said, and Taako had to guess confusion was not very common for gods. At least, not until his group arrived typically.

“No matter,” Kravitz spoke up, quickly looking from him back up to the goddess. “As strange as it is that his soul has apparently been… cast off into our world? For some reason? He is still dead. He should join the sea to rest just like everyone else,” he insisted.

“Hey now, let’s wait a minute before putting me to my eternal rest, because it’s not gonna be eternal. It’s gonna be two weeks. I already told you, my crew’s heading to the next world then, and my soul’ll go with them,” Taako said, because as much as sleeping for two weeks usually sounded like a good thing, he didn’t-

There was a part of him, a stupid part, that was a little worried that if he gave up his soul would just stay here.

“Alright, but what does that  _ mean? _ How are you traveling to different worlds? Nothing you’ve said so far has made any sense,” Kravitz asked, and Taako groaned, rubbing his forehead.

“It’s… a  _ long _ story my dude. We’re still not done figuring out all the pieces, if I’m being honest,” he said, and the Raven Queen hummed at that.

“Well, in that case we have two weeks for you to tell your story. Should that be enough time?” the goddess asked. Taako nodded, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Yeah, yeah, that should be enough,” he relented. Taking a deep breath, he began to tell them everything he knew about their mission so far, of the light of creation and the hunger and cycling through strange and beautiful worlds every year.

Seriously though, Magnus had some explaining of his own to do once he got back from this place.

He never said that dying was going to be so  _ complicated _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you follow my tumblr this idea might look a bit familiar. I've been writing a lot of little drabbles and ideas over there lately and this was one of them that _really_ stuck with me. I wanted to do something more with it, and so far writing fics with slightly shorter chapters has been working out pretty well for me right now as everything is kinda crazy and I don't have time to write longer ones. So that's what we're doing here. I'm really excited for this one. 
> 
> If y'all are interested in my tumblr, it's [here](https://kravkalackin.tumblr.com/)
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
